January 18, 2022By Murray Stassen
Spotify has more paying subscribers than any other audio streaming service operating globally, but its market share is declining.
That’s according to new stats published by research firm Midia, which reports that, at 31%, Spotify had the highest subscription market share in the global streaming business as of Q2 2021 (see below).
This figure was down from 33% in the prior year quarter (Q2 2020), and down from 34% in the quarter a year prior to that (Q2 2019).
In spite of its shrinking market share, Spotify did add more subs in the 12 months prior to Q2 2021 than any other DSP globally, reports Midia.
Spotify’s global Premium Subscriber base at the end of Q2 2021 (ended June 30) was 165 million.
That was up 20% year-on-year, and up by 4%, or 7 million subscribers, on the 158 million that SPOT counted at the end of the prior quarter (Q1 2021).
The most recent subscriber numbers we have for Spotify were published in October, for Q3 2021 (the three months ended September 30), when SPOT’s global Premium Subscriber base grew to 172 million.
That was up 19% year-on-year, and up by 4%, or 7 million subscribers, on the 165m that SPOT counted at the end of the prior quarter (Q2 2021).
Spotify’s subscriber numbers for Q4 2021 (ended December 31) are due to be published by the streaming giant in February.
Elsewhere, amongst Midia’s new set of stats, it’s reported that there were 523.9 million music subscribers globally across all DSPs at the end of Q2 2021.
That figure was up 26.4% (109.5 million) compared the end of Q2 2020, with the biggest growth in subscribers coming from emerging markets.
Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) and NetEase Cloud Music added 35.7 million subscribers combined “in the 12 months leading up to Q2 2021”, according to Midia, with the two platforms accounting for a combined 18% share of the global subscription market.
At the end of Q2 2021, and in second place behind Spotify, Apple Music had a 15% share of the global music streaming subscriber market, as per Midia.
The “standout success story” among streaming services based in the west, according to Midia, was YouTube Music.
Midia reports that YouTube Music saw subscription growth of over 50% in the 12 months leading up to Q2 2021, and furthermore that the platform was the “only Western DSP to increase global market share during this the period”.
In June 2021, YouTube‘s Global Head of Music, Lyor Cohen, suggested that YouTube Music was the “fastest growing subscription service out there”.
YouTube announced in September that it had surpassed 50 million global subscribers to YouTube Music and YouTube Premium (including triallists).
Source: Music Business World Wide
